Reduction of thermal stresses by developing two-dimensional functionally graded materials

Modern aerospace shuttles and craft are subjected to super high temperatures, that have variation in two or three directions, which need to introduce new materials that can stand with such applications. Therefore, in the present work a two-dimensional functionally graded materials, 2D-FGM, are introduced to withstand super high temperatures and to give more reduction in thermal stresses. The suitable functions that can represent volume fractions of the introduced 2D-FGM are proposed. Then the rules of mixture of the 2D-FGM are derived based on the volume fractions of the 2D-FGM and the rules of mixture of the conventional FGM. The introduced volume fractions and rules of mixture for 2D-FGM were used to calculate the thermal stresses in 2D-FGM plate. Comparison between 2D-FGM and conventional FGM was carried out and showed that 2D-FGM has high capability to reduce thermal stresses than the conventional FGM. © 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.